Brooklyn

I still remember the day when I heard that Sandy Koufax refused to pitch a World Series opening game because it was Yom Kippur.

It was, to say the least, something of a shock. We, baseball mad yeshiva kids, knew that the great Southpaw was a Jew from Bensonhurst, but we also knew that he was not observant. In fact, Koufax never even had a Bar Mitzvah. Shock was quickly replaced by pride as this assimilated Jewish superstar made a very public stand for, what we saw as, Torah values.

Meet Larry, my buddy from Bensonhurst. Okay, so it’s not Larry. For reasons of security his identity cannot be compromised. But take my word for it, Larry looks exactly like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Or not.

The Obama administration has blamed the Orlando massacre on guns. Of course, the slaughter was engineered and committed by an IslamoNazi who repeatedly proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS.

In 2009, during a trip to Israel, I ran into an old friend from Brooklyn who, armed with a Glock, saved scores of innocent Jews by bravely confronting an IslamoNazi.

This article originally appeared in Breitbart. I am republishing it now because the Democrats have become enablers of jihad by shifting focus from an evil ideology to chunks of inanimate steel.

When I was a child, there was a bum — a homeless, schizophrenic, alcoholic, malodorous, hysterical bum — who used to show up on Ocean Parkway and Avenue N in Brooklyn, my neighborhood, my hometown, my world, my universe.

My father, Rabbi Abraham Avrech. An Army Chaplain in the 42nd Rainbow Division, my father served this great nation through World War II, The Korean War and Vietnam. Retired as a full Colonel, my father often spoke of his Chaplaincy as the most important and fulfilling of his long and distinguished Rabbinic career.

My father, Rabbi Chaplain Abraham Avrech passed away on March 15, 2014. This is the first Veteran’s Day without my father’s physical presence in this world.

He is gone, but like all veteran’s certainly not forgotten.

Take a moment to ponder the enormous sacrifices made by our nation’s heroes and their families.

Millions and millions of people all over the world are forever in their debt.

Keep in mind that the U.S.military has freed more people on this earth from tyranny and evil than any other force. Certainly, American servicemen have done more for the cause of freedom and democracy than any so-called peace movement.

Whenever I see the brain-dead bumper sticker, “War is not the Answer,” I cringe, for war is frequently the only answer, the only moral response to evil.

Of the finer things in life, wine is the subject of which I am least qualified to write.

However, my cousin Alice Feiring has authored Naked Wine, a fascinating book. And because Alice and I practically grew up together in Brooklyn, and because Alice writes a beautiful prose, and because Alice defended my film A Stranger Among Us with an eloquent letter to the nasty if not anti-Semitic attack published by the Village Voice, and because I love and adore Alice I’m going to take a chance and examine my cousin’s book and the narrow, insular world of wine and the rather obsessive-compulsive characters who populate this fascinating subculture.

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About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California

I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.

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Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century CityNOTE: Click on video titles inside the thumbnail images, below, to open that video in YouTube

Fifteenth: June 10, 2018Jackie Danicki: “Confessions of a Convert: A Humbling, Joyful Journey to Judaism.”